May 25, 2011

Eastern Open

If you are playing in the Eastern Open this weekend in New Jersey, hopefully you are in final preparations for creating utter devastation for your opponents. (I'll be coaching some of the MDTTC juniors there.) If you are not, then you should be planning out your final preparations for creating utter devastation for your opponents in future tournaments, leagues, club matches, or (sigh) beer pong. This should include:

  • Lots of rest. Sleep is actually more important the last few days before the tournament than during the tournament, not that you should skimp on sleep during the tournament.
  • Lots of carbohydrates. They'll load your muscles with glycogen, and give you energy in those long deuce-in-the-fifth matches.
  • Practicing serves. It's how you start half the points, and yet it's the most under-practiced aspect of table tennis. It's also the part you can get the most out of practicing just before a tournament. In my serious playing days I always did lots of serve practice the day before and the morning of a tournament.
  • Match practice. At this point, it's too late to fix up your basic techniques. It's time to get match ready. That means playing practice matches as if they were tournament matches.
  • Mental training. Yes, now's the time to visualize yourself playing tournament matches. Then, when you actually play them, there won't be many jitters since you'll have already played them over and over in your mind. I could go on and on about this, but it's best you just get a book on sports psychology (such as "The Inner Game of Tennis," the classic sports psychology book which uses tennis as an example), or these online articles and resources.
  • Morning warm-up. Have you arranged who you are going to warm up with before your first event? Or do you want to get stuck with your worst nightmare of a practice partner, the guy with bad breath and five surfaces who swats the ball randomly all over the place with 77 different strokes?
  • Look professional. Hey, it's a fashion show out there! Wear your best [your favorite table tennis brand name], and your opponents will quake at the sight of your professional-lookingness.

Presidential Ping-Pong Pictures Proliferate!

The Washington Post this morning ran a large picture at the top of the front page of President Obama and British Prime David Cameron playing table tennis. Really! The headline over it (at the top of the page) reads, "A new take on 'ping-pong diplomacy'?" The caption under it reads, "U.S. President Barack Obama (L) and Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron play table tennis at Globe Academy, in south London May 24, 2011. Obama on Tuesday begins a visit to Britain where he and Prime Minister David Cameron will review NATO action to help end conflict in Libya and Western policy towards uprisings in the Arab world. REUTERS/Paul Hackett."

In case you have been living under a large ping-pong ball the last 24 hours, numerous pictures of the two playing have been released, as well as this 3:46 video of them playing, with Obama giving nonstop commentary. Here are nine photos, which on June 1 will make their way into my Celebrities Playing Table Tennis page. I won't comment on the illegal white shirts with the white ball.

Barack Obama/David Cameron Table Tennis Photos (click to see larger versions)

Republicans released a press release, saying, "It's just another pair of lefties who, just like the economy, foreign affairs, and every other topic we can pin on Obama, can't keep their eye on the ball." (Okay, I made this up. Heck, Cameron is a conservative.)

This is just the latest in a long line of presidents playing table tennis. In the Celebrities Playing Table Tennis page, we already had two photos of Obama playing table tennis - specifically, a photo of a large framed photo on the wall at the White House of him playing, this and this, as well as this one of him sitting down with paddles and ball. (And Obama also bought a ping-pong table for the White House.) Here are other presidents playing ping-pong:

If you explore the Celebrities Playing Table Tennis page, you'll find, well, everyone! There are 1178 pictures of 699 celebrities. (Send me your own!)

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